**Hifiman HE-400 Impressions and Discussion Thread** - Page 63

 

None taken; this is indeed turning into a bit of a bandwagon, which is a shame.

 

On the other hand, right now Hifiman is adamant in looking seriously into the issue and considering some further retuning, and the only real way for them to recognize it would be from loud feedback. Whether the loud feedback is all constructive or all hype bandwagon, the results should be the same.

I think it might be a little bit of expectation bias as well, but I really wish someone could send in their rev 3 he-400s to purrin for measurements.  His csd plots would get to the bottom of the treble issues instantly.

I've almost pulled the trigger several times on HE-400's but all this flavor of the month business with revision after revision has pretty much convinced me not to pull.  Will it ever stop?

I mean, I believe you when you say your pair has slightly more treble. However, this is possibly just headphone by headphone differences, and not because the sound dramatically changed on the R3, if at all. Still, with your statement, you've caused all these newcomers who've never heard an HE400 prior to jump in, fully expecting harsh treble based on your comments. The R2 already had a pretty strong treble emphasis in certain ranges, which can get harsh with certain songs and equipment (the HE400 sounds much better off the NFB5 than the E17, due to the smoother, warmer, more full bodied tone of the NFB5, where the E17 has a fatiguing treble in comparison, until you use the treble reduction).

They have nothing to compare it to, but already calling the R3 inferior compared to R2, which they've never heard. It's beyond stupid to me. The treble was already an issue on the R2s for some users, leading me to believe the R3 more than likely has the same sound, other than your opinion on them.

It just aggravates me that people write off something based on very few legitimate opinions. It's the K701 vs Q701 all over again. That is a very long debate... one that actually has many legit comparisons, and not this he said, she said BS.

I wish I could get an R3. Unlike the bandwagon, I fully expect them to sound 99.9% the same. That .1% difference between human error and not some intentional mild treble bump. Anyone wanna trade me for my R2 for a few weeks, let me know. That way this absolute idiocy can be done with.
Edited by Mad Lust Envy - 10/5/12 at 10:08am

Here's l96North's account of a direct comparison between his r2 and his friend's new r3 headphones, that he PM'd me when we were talking about this:

 

"Just wanted to tell you my brief experience with the v3 drivers was that its piercing treble high end made alot of recordings to ME and MY BUDDY who had the v3 Very tisssy sounding or siblant.

Only a few minutes of listening with v3 i started to become ear fatigued along wirh my buddy noticing the same also. I nor he could not take the added higher end. Pretty much we tried my pads a few of my moded ones n tricks but in the end he had the set for two days then returned them.

He asked me what did they change I replied I dunno but they should change it back.

V2 and v3 are like TO ME "an opinion",not even close to being the same. Not saying that's bad or good just different for being the same headphone model HE-400

A big sound signature deviation from older revisions."

 

I think he's the only one to have directly compared the two revisions.

 

 

 

 

Ever check out Audeze?  Same merry go round, lots more money....   Even Sennheiser, AKG, and Denon have had serious revisions...they just refuse to admit it publicly.

 

 

So...more like HE-6 then?    To think some folks pay $1500 for HD800 to get that very same level of tizziness....

 

Shame...the joy of HE-400 was the dark signature...trying to make them bright like the other HFM cans seems kind of backwards.   I almost wonder if they realized that HE-400 was turning out so good it was harming their other sales?

Audez'e might even be worse for inconsistency.  Purrin and his pirates say some of their veiled LCD2s and LCD3s sound even worse than a lot of considerably cheaper products out there.  Tyll had to even hold off on his LCD review for quite a while until Audeze straightened their issues out.

 

The good news is that they might've finally got it right and consistent with the bamboo lcd2s.  Those will be my next purchase for sure... until I grow tired of the rev 2 he-400s, which won't be for a while.

I have nothing to compare to (except ie-80 iems) and got mine he-400 today. I am happy to trade with you for few weeks. I am in UK though, so shipping costs may be slightly higher, ok with me.

I think the more experienced head-fiers have a chance to listen to both of them the better :)

 

I wonder if i would hear the difference between the 2, and if yes - which one I would actually prefer.

But this are the first set of big headphones for me, I've spent way too much of my time trying to decide what to get as these are not cheap. I based my choice on my prefered sound signature and opinion of experts from this forum. Now I am just afraid that I didn't get exactly what I decided to pay for. As I said these is first pair of big headphones for me, and these are very different to iem-s, so I didn't know what to expect. 

 

My ie-80 seem darker in first impressions, but from buying iems i know i personally need to burn-in. I didn't like sm3 when I got them but they grew on me, didn't like senn ie-80 either, now they are my fav, so I know I need some hours before knowing what i think about the sound :)

 

Oh, I drive them with E17.

Yeah, that's what got me started.  I got new LCD-2's which were waay too rolled on top. Turns out they were the orginals just before they changed to the next revision.  Now I'm gun shy with both Audez'e and HFM.  Maybe they should both just create new models for the signatures desired instead of these confusing revisions, you know, the ones you have to take the pads off and hope you got the revision you paid for.

 

Really maddening.

 

Haha no, far from HE6s. HE6 treble has a wholesome detailed brightness to it, since it is an extremely smooth and clean response, the new HE400 treble has some gnarly peaks in the 10-20kHz region and possibly even some ringing (as EQing down the whole treble region by -10 dB still shows this tizzy background to vocals) so it is not smooth at all, and is instead sandpaper-like and quite abrasive to vocal presentations.

 

 

 

 

 

"NEW! HE400 SIGNATURE CUSTOMIZATION OPTIONS!

Choose between 'HE400i' instrumental (ultra bright), 'HE400a' all-use (medium), 'HE400v' vocal music (ultra-dark) flavours!"

Edited by jerg - 10/5/12 at 11:46am

For any new HE400 owners who only view this thread: Fang just announced the acknowledgement of treble issue with the newest HE400s and a product recall for replacement.

 

http://www.head-fi.org/t/630549/open-announcement-on-the-hifiman-he-400

 

Guess it wasn't BS. 

 

Never doubted for a second that it was, my ears don't lie especially when the issue is glaring. It was also reinforced by a direct A/B comparison that another owner did with his friend who received one of those new units.

 

Anyway, packing up the current pair as I'm typing this, hope to get the replacement asap 

True. But others were defensive about the situation. It's nice to see Fang step up by replacing affected units and move on.